Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Noteboom nabs HDT checkers at Buena Vista Raceway

Jay Noteboom held onto the final redraw spot in his heat race, redrew the #2 pill for the feature, then led all 30 laps to earn the win in the JR Motorsports Hawkeye Dirt Tour event at Buena Vista Raceway on Tuesday night.

Noteboom raced past pole-sitter Josh Most to take the lead at the drop of the green before the yellow flag waved for a spinning Mark Elliott with one lap complete. Noteboom quickly built a sizable lead when racing resumed with Stacey Mills giving chase on the high side in second and Dustin Smith running the low groove in third.

Noteboom built a half-straightaway lead by lap seven with Mills in second and Josh Most back in pursuit. The leaders ran the top groove in that formation until the caution waved on lap 12 when Smith lost an engine in turn four.

When racing resumed, Mike Van Genderen, who started in the fourth row, ran the low groove into contention when Most drifted high in turn two. Chris Abelson also closed on the leaders running the top side.

Van Genderen closed on Noteboom and was able to pull even with the leader in both sets of turns on the 20th circuit. He challenged until the caution flag waved on lap 21 for a pileup in turn two that knocked Richie Gustin, Mark Schulte and Jeff Waterman out of the event.

On the restart, Noteboom again tried to pull away from the pack on the top side of the speedway as Abelson worked the high side past Van Genderen. Jeremy Mills also worked around the outside of Van Genderen while Abelson closed in on the leader. As Abelson cut into Noteboom's advantage, the caution flag waved one final time on lap 26 for Most, who spun in turns three and four.

When the green flag waved a final time, Darin Duffy, who raced through the field from a ninth row starting spot, powered to the inside of Abelson and Mills to challenge for second while Van Genderen drifted off the high side of turn two. Duffy made the pass for the runner-up spot, but Noteboom held off his late surge to take the win, his first in HDT action. Duffy took second ahead of Jeremy Mills and Abelson. Elliott made a nice rebound from his first lap spin to come home fifth.

Along with the HDT Modifieds, the Alta oval hosted weekly points racing for its other regular divisions.

Donavon Smith held off a late surge from Brian Blessington to take top honors in the IMCA Stock Car 15-lapper. Running the low side, Blessington made his way past Chris Ullrich late for second, but was unable to make a run beneath the leader as Smith held on for the win in the caution-free event.

Another Smith dominated the SportMod feature as Doug Smith took the win in that 15-lap event. Unlike Donavon, Doug had to survive a trio of cautions. Just like Donavon, Doug led his event from green to checkers to take the victory. Keagan Scott ran a close second.

Andy Boeckman took the lead just prior to a vicious rollover midway through the 12-lap IMCA Hobby Stock feature. Just after Boeckman took command when race leader Justin Nehring's ride went up in smoke, Casey Iehl suffered a violent roll in turn four.
When racing resumed, Boeckman ran the high side while Devin Smith raced through the pack to challenge from the low side. Boeckman proved to be too strong up top as he held on for the win.

A wild Bomber feature saw a trio of cautions and multiple trips to the work area for the nine participants in that eight-lapper. In the end, Keith Demey survived the chaos to take the win, the only car left on the lead lap.

I had a great time on my first trip to BVR since 2001. Thanks to Brett Root for allowing me to tag along on the three-plus hour drive to northwest Iowa. With all the miles it felt like we put on Tuesday, I was kind of surprised we never ran out of gas...

In addition to the great night of racing in Alta, Tuesday night seemed like a social event in many aspects. It was a lot of fun hanging out with HDT scorer Jen Turner. Between Mod races and during cautions, we had in depth conversations on healthy living, the upcoming presidential election and the future of newsprint media. Well, not really. I mean, it was a lot of fun, but we didn't talk about that stuff. Our chats weren't fit to print, but they were damn fun to pass the time!

Kevin Trittien (currently idle PR.com blogger and speedway social chair), Wade Sembach (of Dusty Trail fame), along with the Karsyn's Krusaders gang, were also in attendance and made the night entertaining. While they did blow up my phone with some hysterical text messages, they were definitely worth a dying phone on the long trip home. I hope you found something to eat on your way home, Jessica! By the way, you never did tell me if you like baseball...

It was also nice to meet long-time BVR scorer Kay Schurke. Thanks, Kay, for all your help with race results!

That will take care of my mid-week travels for this week. Although the final checkered flag didn't wave until around 11:30, and despite the drive home with Brett while he dodged numerous random critters, I had a blast!